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I am not an accountant

The title of this post comes from an interview I did, and I can’t for the life of me remember who it was with. But I’m sure the context was that an organization was short on volunteers, so while working on a story about it, I asked about the qualifications and positions they were looking to fill.

And the answer came back that they would take anyone, and train them for whatever position the person was interested in. The person I was interviewing was trying to make the point that if an accountant volunteered their time to help out another organization, they probably didn’t want to be handed the books, they probably wanted a different task that required a different skill set, just for something, well, different.

My new (well, I’ve been there for six months, so new-ish) job requires me to be on social media more than ever before. Right after starting the job, I noticed there were some days I had no desire to be on social media at all personally, simply because I had spent so much time there during the day.

Now, I’m just starting some new projects with an organization in town, as a volunteer, and guess what, they’re communications projects. Not social media, but they definitely encompass a few other areas of my skill set. Disclaimer: it’s what I volunteered for and what I said I would be happy to do.

This morning I was super excited, but when I got home and realized that after dealing with one email program for eight hours (and 15 hours before, this weekend, but that’s another story) I still had to deal with my personal email, to work on this new project.

And it kind of sucked.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still super excited, and I think there are trade-offs that will make me love it, just because of the nature of the organization and what they do.

I just thought it was very interesting that I thought of that interview. And it makes me wonder what else I can do. The other organization I volunteer with, OFRE, has nothing to do with me being a journalist. It has everything to do with I love the idea of local food, I love fruit, I like being outside and I love the idea that everyone should have access to local, fresh food.

In case you missed it, part of my deal with myself about picking up and moving cities again was taking opportunities that weren’t otherwise available to me. Working with OFRE? Yes. Hooping? Yes.

We’ll see how it goes, I just feel like I’m cutting corners a little with this one.